A story about supporting a person with dementia in the community

“Hello, is this my father? This is your number one daughter speaking.”

There is an emergency call from my father, the first for the day.

Actually, they’re all emergency calls, generated by a red button device that’s been sitting next to his chair for a few months now. It was quite a shock to discover that he could no longer make or answer phone calls, which led us to look for a technical solution.

Not one of those sensible monitored alarms you wear around your neck, “because I don’t need help yet”, according to our stubborn and declining patriarch. So five of us are hooked up to the red button that dials his phone and we take his calls in turn.

Most calls start in a state of high agitation, because that’s usually the prompt for pressing the button.  It can take up to fifteen minutes to calm him down sufficiently to understand the story.

Today something is broken.

“Is it inside or outside the house”,  I start.

“I can’t think of the word”, he says, “I may as well be dead.”

“No, because then I’ll never find out what’s broken”,  I tell him. He laughs and calms down enough to get a bit more specific. It’s inside, it’s wet and it’s located near where he eats.

“So it involves water in the kitchen”.  Talking to my father is like a game of Cluedo in three languages.

“Yes”,  he says, “that’s it.”

“Is it the tap”, I ask, going down the list of possible broken things in the kitchen. “Shall I call a plumber?’”

“Yes”, he says, “call that nice one because he will have what needs to be fixed.”

I’ve been compiling a list of trustworthy local tradies. The plumber is his grandson’s friend and he knows about my father’s situation.  He asks if it is urgent.

“Well, you and I wouldn’t think so, but I’m not quite sure what the problem is”, I tell him.

“We’ll drop in and give you a call”,  he says. I receive a return call from the plumber within the hour, telling me the kettle is broken. By now it’s 5pm and the shops are closing.

“He’s so upset, that I’ve given him ours”,  he says. I can only imagine this is the kettle from their truck.

I laugh as I thank him, and text my brothers and sisters with an update. It’s the way we stay sane more or less, supporting  each other via a group text. It also makes the next phone call much easier, knowing the context of otherwise random conversations.

And the next afternoon there is another emergency call.

“It’s a nice kettle”, my father tells me. “But it’s empty.”

I text my sister to organise his carer to go to the house and fill the kettle for him.

Later that evening he calls again to tell me that you’re never too old to learn something new.  “If you take the lid off, you can fill the kettle under the tap.”

We celebrate the success of him conquering his independence for another day.

And the plumber has messaged my sister that the kettle is a gift.